FOOD CHAIN UNIT
LESSON:
#4
DATE: September 26, 2001
TITLE: What’s for Dinner? (Adapted from "Project Wild: What’s For Dinner?")
OBJECTIVES:
State-
Identify familiar organisms as part of a food chain or food web and describe their feeding relationships within the web.
Describe the basic requirements for all living things to maintain their existence.
Okemos-
- All animals are consumers because they cannot make their own food.
- Food chains show the flow of energy through and ecosystem; they will also begin with a green plant.
MATERIALS:
- writing materials
- sheets of 11"x 14" paper
- sheets of writing paper
PROCEDURE:
Introduction-
- Have them look at their samples briefly and record observations. (5 minutes)
- Read pp. 4-13, 20-27 from Who Eats What? as a class. (10 minutes)
- Have the students create a dinner menu consisting of their favorite foods on writing paper. (2 minutes)
Lesson-
- In the classroom, ask the students to work in groups to analyze where their food comes from on the same paper. (5 minutes)
- Have students create a food chain for everything on their menu. Draw, label and color everything. (15 minutes)
- Have a general discussion with the students: "What are the things you have learned from this activity?" (5 minutes)
Conclusion-
- Share the posters with the class. (10 minutes)
- Conclude by leading the students to two generalizations: 1) all animals including people and wildlife need food; and 2) all animals, including people and wildlife depend on plants for food. (5 minutes)
- Ask the class to compare the steps (number of animals and plants) in their food chain).
ADAPTATIONS:
- As an extension, create a master list of all of the plants that were identified.
ASSESSMENT:
- The posters and the discussion are the assessment tools.